If a Nashville Sounds stadium is built on the Sulphur Dell site, it will have to make sense for taxpayers, Mayor Karl Dean said at a news conference today, declining to offer details on how the project would be financed.

"As muchas I'd like to see the Sounds in a new home, first and foremost, the deal has to make sense for our taxpayers," he said, adding the city is further along on a new stadium that it has ever been.

The city has been in talks with the state about a land transaction that would allow the city to pursue a new stadium and move the team from Greer Stadium. According to presentation documents, Metro would finance a $10 million parking garage and the stadium that would open in 2015 would cost $40 million. Dean said today those numbers are conceptual.

Dean emphasized that the city is early in the process, and a number of details still need to be worked out. But he said if a stadium is built under his administration, it will be at Sulphur Dell, as opposed to other sites that have been studied in recent years.

“Of the sites that have been studied, it’s the only one that is economically feasible and in my opinion, it is the site thatwill generate the greatest economic impact,” Dean said, adding that the site’s history and the potential for redevelopment along Jefferson Street appealed to him.

Dean is optimistic that Metro Council will support the stadium project and that a new stadium would not interfere with his focus on transit or other priorities, including education, public safety and economic development.

"We are still in a position to move forward with transit," he said. "In fact, I would say this project underscores the need formore and better transit in our city.This project contains a very serious and real economic development component, which is the activation of that area and the development that will follow. That will be a good thing in creating jobs and expanding our tax base."

Dean offered no timeline, but said he'd like to see it happen "sooner than later."